When people think about top talent, there is usually reverence for how good they are for the company. Which is usually true…
Top talent is always sought out, every hire, you hope becomes a top producer. When you hire or develop a top talent, it feels like you have hit the jackpot, whatever they touch turns to gold. If you give them something, you know it’s going to get done and it’s going to be high quality.
The question in your head right now is probably…when could they ever be bad for a company? If they are, shocker, it’s probably your fault as their leader.
As a leader, you need to make sure that your top talent is unlocking the rest of your team as much as they are knocking out high impact/profile work. What does that look like? If you are giving all your most complex or interesting work to your top talent, then the rest of your team is languishing and lagging behind. It may seem counterintuitive to not give your most complex work to your top talent, but overtime, if they are the only resource doing it…at some point, whether they leave the company, move to another project or get promoted out the teams…you will end up with a MASSIVE hole in your teams that will take multiple months or more to fill.
Rather than giving everything to your top talent, spread the love. Get others involved and have the top talent support/mentor them through the complicated, high impact work. This will build up your entire team over time, it won’t be as fast out of the gate, but it will eventually start becoming second nature to the entire team instead of just small percentage of the team. If you invest evenly in the growth of your team and company, you will see MAJOR gains in throughput and technical strength.
There are things that can impact that team growth negatively when trying to share the love…maybe your top talent isn’t a good mentor or isn’t a good culture fit. Those are coachable things in some instances and in other instances, it’s simply best to find/develop another top talent and let them carry that torch.
It’s important to develop your team from top to bottom…and it’s significantly faster to use your best talent to knock it out.
Thanks for being here, let me know if you have questions or disagree!
